Julián Andrés Domínguez (born 24 November 1963) is an Argentine Justicialist Party politician of the Justicialist Party. He was twice Minister of Agriculture, in the cabinets of presidents Alberto Fernández (2021–2022) and

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner (; born 19 February 1953), often referred to by her initials CFK, is an Argentine lawyer and former politician who served as the 56th president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and later as the 37th Vice ...

(2009–2011). From 2011 to 2015, he was President of the

Argentine Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies (), officially the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation, is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress (). It is made up of 257 national deputies who are elected in multi-member constituencies c ...

Early life and career

Domínguez was born in the

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

town of Chacabuco, located in the heart of the Pampas and the Argentine

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

belt. His grandparents were smallholders, and made artisanal honey, jams, and cheeses. His mother, Nélida Olivetto, raised young Julián as a single mother, and worked at the grade school he attended. He enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires and entered Law School, though without ultimately earning a degree. He married Claudia Moreno, with whom he had four children and adopted a fifth. Domínguez entered public service in 1989 as head of the board of advisors of the Buenos Aires Province Social Security Institute. He later joined the national Ministry of Health under President

Carlos Menem Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) served as the 50th president of Argentina for ten years, from 1989 to 1999. He identified as Peronism, Peronist, serving as President of the Justicialist Party for 13 years (from 1990 to 200 ...

as chief youth policy advisor, and in 1993, was named chief policy advisor to Interior Minister (

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...

) Carlos Ruckauf.Linkedin: Julián Domínguez
/ref> In 2013, he finished his degree in law at the University of Buenos Aires.

Political career

Local and provincial politics

He returned to Chacabuco in 1994 and was elected '' intendente'' (mayor) the following year on the ruling Justicialist Party (

Peronist Peronism, also known as justicialism, is an Argentine ideology and movement based on the ideas, doctrine and legacy of Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Pe ...

) ticket. Domínguez was elected to the Lower House of Congress in 1999, but forfeited his seat following an offer for the post of provincial Public Works Minister by Ruckauf, who had been elected Governor of Buenos Aires. He was influential in the governor's 2001 decision to rescind the province's water service concession granted several years earlier to Azurix, a local

Enron Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both re ...

subsidiary. The precipitous resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa at the end of 2001 and his eventual replacement by a leading Peronist figure,

Eduardo Duhalde Eduardo Alberto Duhalde (; born 5 October 1941) is an Argentina, Argentine former peronist politician who served as the interim President of Argentina from January 2002 to May 2003. He also served as Vice President of Argentina, Vice President ...

, brought Domínguez to the Casa Rosada as the President's Assistant Chief of Staff. He served mainly in a parliamentary liaison capacity in this post, and the election of Néstor Kirchner to the Presidency in 2003 took Domínguez to an important Defense Ministry post, where he served as liaison between the Argentine Military and the remaining, civilian arms of the Argentine Government. He was elected to the Buenos Aires Province Legislature in 2003, and his work with Ruckauf and Duhalde, both former governors who still wielded influence in the provincial capital, helped result in Domínguez's prompt election as the body's Justicialist Party caucus Whip. He became prominent in the Judiciary Committee, becoming its Chairman and the Vice President of the Lower House itself following his reelection in 2007.

Minister of Agriculture and later work

Fallout from the 2008 Argentine government conflict with the agricultural sector over a proposed rise in export tariffs led to a number of changes in the executive branch, including the creation that year of a Production Ministry and, on 30 September 2009, the reinstatement of the Agriculture Secretariat as a (cabinet-level) ministry, a prominence the post had not enjoyed since 1981. Supported by Presidential Chief of Staff Aníbal Fernández, Domínguez was tapped for the post and sworn in on 1 October. Pending, however, were improvements in strained relations between the center-left administration of President Cristina Kirchner and (among others) nation's important agrarian sector, whose leading figures approved of her decision to reinstate the Agriculture Ministry, but expressed skepticism at the appointment to the post of a legislator with no farming experience, and who had recently supported a hike in provincial farm income taxes. Domínguez's tenure saw the federal government regain the initiative to some extent vis-à-vis the agrarian sector. The contentious entity regulating agricultural subsidies, ONCCA, was dissolved in 2011; and the proposed return to a Federal Grain Board (such as the one prevailing in Argentina between 1935 and the creation of ONCCA in 1996), as well as the revival of the Federal Agrarian Council of provincial officials dealing with the sector, succeeded in dividing the powerful agrarian lobby round table, the ''Mesa de Enlace''. He was elected to the

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, he was named president of the body on 6 December. In 2021, he was once again appointed as Minister of Agriculture, this time under President Alberto Fernández in replacement of Luis Basterra. Domínguez's appointment was part of a cabinet reshuffle following the government's poor showings in the 2021 legislative primary elections.

References

, - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Dominguez, Julian 1963 births Living people Alberto Fernández administration cabinet members Mayors of places in Argentina Ministers of agriculture of Argentina Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Buenos Aires Province Argentine deputies 2013–2015 Argentine deputies 2011–2013 Justicialist Party politicians University of Buenos Aires alumni Fernández de Kirchner administration cabinet members